LEADERSHIP
NAME: SIR JAMES DYSON JOB TITLE: FOUNDER COMPANY: DYSON INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY HEADQUARTERS: SINGAPORE
Sir James Dyson is a pioneering British inventor and entrepreneur. Renowned for his persistence and“ wrong thinking,” he transformed a bagless vacuum prototype into a global engineering and agricultural empire.
“ People think failure is a badge of honor now, but at the time, it felt like a disaster,” says Dyson.“ I was a 30-something-year-old man with three children, no income, and a shed full of 5,000 things that didn’ t work.” In 1992, Dyson bought a factory site in Malmesbury Wiltshire from which he grew a £ 2.75bn( US $ 3.7bn) enterprise. That growth required a series of cold-eyed decisions that tested Sir Dyson’ s reputation as a champion of British industry. The first major rupture happened in 2002 when he moved manufacturing to Malaysia. This shift was met with accusations of betrayal from unions and politicians. Dyson’ s defense was unsentimental: production costs were 30 % lower and the proximity to Asian suppliers and emerging markets was a logistical necessity. While assembly went offshore, R & D and high-level engineering remained in Malmesbury. By 2019, the move was complete with the relocation of corporate headquarters to Singapore. With more than half of sales coming from the Asia-Pacific region, Dyson positioned himself at the centre of his future market. Today, the St James Power Station factory in Singapore produces 13 million digital motors a year for everything from vacuums to hair dryers. In his memoir, Dyson wrote of the move:“ Manufacturing companies need to be very close to their suppliers for speed of technology development,
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